Harry's Grades/Talent, WAS: Snape thoughts of Harry

[Katie]

No: HPFGUIDX 177211

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> jbmwfb69 wrote:
> >
> > Severus Snape always said Harry was an arrogant mediocre wizard.
> Does Harry have mediocre or great powers?
> 
> Carol responds:
<<<HUGE SNIP>>>
 
> In terms of schoolwork, Snape is right. Harry is an ordinary student
> who values Quidditch (or finding out what Draco Malfoy is up to) 
more than his lessons. His marks seem to be average though his OWL 
grades (one O, with Es in all the key subjects, even Potions) show 
that Harry has learned from his classes in spite of himself. Harry 
earns an O in DADA not, perhaps, through innate ability, but through 
his unusual education in that subject. He has had the advantage of 
private lessons in casting a Patronus, not to mention having a 
Dementor Boggart to practice on (which earns him a bonus point on the 
OWL but also enables him to deal with real Dementors, at first from a 
distance and then up> close). He also has to learn spells not taught 
by his current DADA teacher, Crouch!Moody, to compete in the TWT 
tournament (odd, that, considering that Crouch!Moody wants Harry to 
win. Maybe he doesn't want any other students to learn useful 
spells?). 
<<SNIP>>
> In short, Harry's DADA expertise is not so much a matter of talent 
as of the opportunity to learn and practice spells that most of his
> classmates have not been taught. And, of course, he actually uses
> Expelliarmus against Voldemort himself, with highly unusual results
> that have more to do with his wand than with Harry himself. In HBP,
> his dislike and distrust of Snape seems to block him from further
> progress in that subject: he never learns nonverbal spells (except 
th Prince's own Levicorpus/Liberacorpus; ironically, the only new 
spells that Harry learns in HBP are the ones invented by the teenage 
Severus Snape).
> 
> While Harry is by no means incompetent and Snape's label 
of "mediocre" is slightly off the mark, he seems to be what Americans 
would call a B student in the subjects that matter (worse than that 
in History of Magic and Divination). He has to struggle to learn 
certain spells (IIRC, he had a hard time with Impedimenta) and, 
except for his unexplained ability to block an Imperius Curse, spells 
that require concentration--whether Charms, Transfiguration, or DADA--
don't come easily for him, nor do mental skills like Occlumency and 
nonverbal spells. (As for Legilimency, probably his excursions into 
Voldemort's mind make it unlikely that he'll ever want to learn that 
skill.) 
<<<HUGE SNIP>>> 
> In assessing Harry's skills as a wizard, I agree with Snape. Harry 
has mediocre powers, not great ones. But courage and love triumph over
> power in the end. 
> 
> Carol, who thinks that Auror training and a normal life probably
> enabled Harry to develop the skills that Snape (and others) 
mistakenly thought he needed to defeat LV


***Katie:

I have to disagree. In terms of his OWLs, I think getting an "Exceeds 
Expectations" in almost every catagory in pretty remarkable. I don't 
get the feeling that these grades are equivalent to the "A,B,C..." 
grading scale in America - especially because JKR's reference point 
was British schools, which have an entirely different grading system 
than American schools. Maybe some of our British members can 
enlighten us as to the grading system in primary and secondary 
education in the UK, but I know that, as a college student who 
attended University College, London for 2 years, it took this 
American quite awhile to adjust to a different measure of acedemic 
acheivement. My point is, I think "Exceeds Expectations" is just 
that - it's above average, but not perfect. So, based on his OWLs 
alone, I would say Harry is an above average student - not because of 
his dedication to schoolwork, but because of an innate intelligence 
that helps him to get through.

His DADA abilities are definitely due in part to special tutoring and 
the extremely unusual circumstances of having to fight Dark Wizards 
frequently throughout his adolescence...but it's equally a measure of 
his innate talents in this area. Had he not had a natural gift for 
this kind of magic, he would have been dead in book 1. Even Lupin 
(paraphrasing, without book) notes that Harry's abilities to produce 
a Patronus are remarkable for someone his age. Some of the stuff that 
Harry seems to learn easily is very advanced magic, and I don't think 
that it's a fluke. He definitely has a natural aptitude for learning 
this kind of magic.

He does have to struggle to learn other spells in other areas, but I 
don't think that necessarily reflects on his DADA abilities. For 
example, I am remarkably good at writing, history, and literature. I 
would say I am definitely an "O" in these areas...however, put a 
fifth grade math book in front of me, and I struggle. Because I am 
horrible at math doesn't mean I am overall not very intelligent - it 
just means I'm good at some things and not so good at others. Harry 
is the same. Saying he's an all-round mediocre or average student 
isn't really accurate. He's extremely talented at some things and 
extremely average at others. 

Katie, thinking Harry's probably a lot like my own dear husband - a 
very intelligent guy who never liked school all that much.